Apocatips for the Apocalypse

I am so, so sick of this.  I am at the limits of medical intervention and I am at the limit of what I am able to do for myself.  I feel like everyone I love is slowly peeling themselves away from me, and with good reason.  I am the kind of toxic that fills lungs with sludge, a fungus that seeps through the walls and refuses to die.  I cannot bear this supreme loneliness.  I cannot stay confined to this body that is so useless and this mind that offers no escape.  All of the good things that were once within me have been worn away by the endless, constant drip of madness, and I am at the point of surrender.  I am told that fighting shows strength, but it seems to me it is now just willful ignorance; denial of what will inevitably come.  I would rather lie still and die quickly.  The Beast has won.  Let it do to me what it must; I welcome slaughter as a peaceful martyr, rather than a rebel with bloody fists.  I do not even ask for dig...

Don’t tell me “I love you” until you can answer, “How much?” and please for the love of God do not say “I love you to the moon and back” or “from the bottom of my heart” or “this much, because a circle never ends”. I don’t want to be loved metaphorically. Because when you say “I love you to the moon and back” you’re really saying your love stretches 477,000 miles, which is a long-ass drive and I gave up on being an astronaut in third grade. The average human heart is only five inches long so getting to the bottom of it isn’t very impressive. And I’ve always thought that circles do end, because after all they have to start somewhere, and I demand more love than can fit within the circumference of your fingers. I need to know if you’ll still love me after you’ve picked my cruel words like gravel out of your skin.  When my anger has left your cheeks red and smarting will you draw me back to you after they’ve cooled. Will you stay with me thro...

CW: Dissociation, sexual assault, suicide, self-harm Dissociative Identity Disorder  (DID), formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is a disease that most people are most familiar with as the basis for an insanity plea in approximately every crime TV show that has ever been aired in the history of time.  In these depictions, the mild-mannered defendant commits a crime, which they don't remember because it happened while they were waltzing around as their own evil twin...or, in one particularly bizarre episode of Psych, where a man's mtf trans alter was murdering his therapists and "haunting" his own home, because he didn't know she existed.  God, I miss that show. Sadly, however, everything you have ever learned from pop culture is completely and totally inaccurate. The truth about DID is that it's actually so misunderstood that mental health professionals are divided on whether it exists at all.  It is currently included in the DSM-5 (i...

There's a saying that often gets written on crafts and cards in the nanny groups on Facebook: "You may hold my hand for a while, but you will hold my heart forever."  That may sound sweet, but it's painfully true, and it hurts like a sonofabitch. As a nanny, you know that every position ends, but some transitions are more painful than others.  The best outcome you can hope for is that the kids get older and the parents simply don't need you anymore.  Then they give you good references, say you can come by any time, and you keep in touch enough to see your kiddos grow up happy and healthy.  Worst-case scenario would be something like, say, you're a live-in nanny for a stay-at-home mom who also happens to be an addict who emotionally abuses and manipulates you, and after taking it for a year you give your two weeks notice in a professional manner, get convinced to stay longer because you love the children, request that your boss not take your only battery-o...

I'm scared that no one will ever call me "Mama" again. I'm scared of being alone. I'm scared of asking people to accept my gender. I feel like I don't fit inside my own skin. I want to get really, really drunk and fuck myself up. I am tired of being alive. Even my grief is selfish.

I talked to my shrink on the phone a few days ago.  It only took about a week for the novelty and luxury of staying with safe people to start to wear off, and I feel like I'm losing control really quickly.  I restricted enough to drop a few pounds, which hasn't happened in a while, followed by binging two days in a row, so basically I am a paragon of health and stability.  The self-injury urges and suicidal ideation have been sneaking back, especially after Mama and Papa are in bed and that loneliness starts soaking in.  My shrink and I talked about some of my self-care activities, and the phrase she said that has been reverberating in my mind since then is, "Remember, you're trying to choose life." Choose life.  That sounds like something that shouldn't be very hard.  I suppose I am lucky that I do have the choice to not die at this point.  The difficulty is that I am very, very sick.  I think suicide is a thought that has passed through the...

CW: Suicidal ideation, side-effects, illness, death, mention of graphic hallucinations. It's getting late and I'm starting to get that feeling, that itch deep in my chest that means I'm probably not going to be able to sleep tonight, again. I get so mad about sleep sometimes.  There's no happy medium for me, not even with this stupid, simple thing that's barely above breathing on the scale of basic human functions.  And yet, I can not get a fucking handle on it.  I sleep three hours, or 15.  I sleep all day and then am through the ceiling by 2am.  Even when I sleep enough, there are times I feel like I will literally pass out if I can't take a nap.  A week ago I almost left in the middle of a church service to go sleep in my car, even though I'd just slept ten hours.  The only reason I didn't is because I couldn't bear to make a noise and have people look at me (thanks social anxiety, you're a champ).  I actually looked up the diagno...